Thinking Outside The Box
by DarkmoonSigel
Summary: This is a story of how Adam got himself out of the Cage with some help from the archangels. Set at the end of Season 8 and the beginning of Season 9, so spoilers maybe? Imaginary cookies to whoever gets the movie reference. Not Beta Read.


The Cage was nothing like Adam expected. He had personally envisioned something like the Matrix, but with a lot more screaming, mind fuckery, and brimstone, whatever the fuck brimstone was.

In all honesty, he hadn't expected anything or given the Cage much thought really considering he wasn't supposed to be here, as in at all, in the first place. He was supposed to be sitting on a cloud in Heaven with his mom, not bored out of his skull watching two archangels tear into each other like jilted rival cheerleaders. Stupid fucking angels.

Locked together in hatred and quarrels older than some solar systems were, Lucifer and Michael would tussle, roll around, make a mess of things and each other, break apart for a bit, lick their wounds, and repeat the entire damn thing all over again. It would start to get really boring if it wasn't so terrifyingly nerve wracking.

In all efforts toward keeping calm and possibly finding a way out of this literal hellhole, Sam wasn't being much help either. When he wasn't throwing himself in-between the two archangel(cause that was always such a bright idea…..wasn't he supposed to be the smart one?), Sam spent most of his time babbling to himself in chosen corners, and drew on walls of his own making with blood gathered from self inflicted injuries.

That or he rambled on at Adam, telling him all sorts of random shit. Sometimes it was interesting. Sam would talk about hunting with Dean, the things they killed, about being almost killed or really killed. Most of the time though he would just whine about his life or lack there of. It was too the point that Adam was beginning to categorize Sam's whining in alphabetical order. Whenever he got to the 'J's or 'R's though, he knew it would go on for a while. Adam was beginning to think he was the only sane one here. His surroundings and unchosen company certainly didn't help matters.

After much thought because there was really nothing else to do but think, Adam decided that the Cage was infinite but not, which made no sense but that's what is was so Adam dealt with it. He liked to think of the Cage like it was a holodeck from Star Trek, because yeah, he could wrap his head around that and it wasn't like anyone was going to judge his love for sci-fi shows here.

So his very own personal holodeck in Hell reflected back the mental states of its occupants. Thanks to the asshats that shared the space with him, there was a lot of random shit floating around (he was still getting over the flamboyance of neon green flamingoes and he had no clue whose head they had come out of) but in all fairness to the Cage, it was only supposed to have one jailbird(jail angel…..yup, totally sane and funny to boot) in it. It was just trying to keep up with four minds the best it could instead of just one, so some overlap was occurring. Things got messy when three out of four beings were beyond seven shades of crazy. Three out of four cause Adam refused to group himself together with them. He was cool as a cucumber, safe as houses, and apparently, really enjoyed lying to himself.

Avoiding the his cellmates the best he could, Adam found himself a shady spot in what he could only deem was a corner in a nonexistent metaphysical round room in Hell, and carved himself out a tiny space to hide in that reality. He hunkered down in comfy shadows, shaping it like a tent fort, similar to the ones he used to make when he was alive and his mom had to work late, which was a lot, like 'most of his childhood' a lot. From inside his makeshift hiding place, Adam could peek out to see if were still raining brimstone, or kittens depending who was at the wheel, and check if his neighbors were still trying to kill each other or sulking. Damn, angels could sulk hardcore.

On clearer days when Michael and Lucifer in their own corners moping like tweens deprived of Bieber, Adam would venture out. Sometimes out of boredom, sometimes out of curiosity, other times out of necessity, because he was not going to let himself start having tea parties in top hats with talking mice and hares. Avoiding archangels was easier than one would expect since the pair didn't deign to even acknowledge his presence most of the time. Adam felt insanely relieved and yet vaguely insulted by this.

In his wanderings of the Cage, Adam would go visit Sam's unofficial part of it. On his more lucid days, Sam could be an appealing option over solitude, his section looking like a cheap motel room or some sort of student apartment. On his off days when it was all chains, hooks, and 'oh god what the fuck is that?' gunk, Adam thought Sam did a bang up job of torturing himself when the Devil wasn't doing it for him, cause hey, they all got bored here. Adam could only watch for so long as Sam did all the carving while Lucifer made interesting suggestions from the sidelines.

At least then, he could talk to Michael alone, well, more accurately at him. The archangel never gave him a reply or even so much as a head nod or sideways glance in return, but it was something to do other than listen to Sam beg, whimper, and scream his way through another session with himself. Plus, it was super creepy when Lucifer applauded Sam's latest demonstration of visceral self loathing.

And then on one day, just like any other day here in the Cage, a bright white light like a shooting star came down from high above and swept Sam up, or at least his container, leaving behind a very surprised group of beings and one crying naked soul. In Adam's opinion, that was when things really took a turn for the worse.

It turned out that human souls were like batteries made of crack to an angel, and an exposed soul sans its meat suit was a defenseless buffet for addicts. God had put some sort of code in the angels or human's flesh or both that kept them from touching each other. Angels needed a human's permission to feel up their core, but only while they were in their body. All bets were off when the flesh fell away.

So Michael and Lucifer started to super saiyan themselves off of Sam's live wire soul which from the way Sam spasmed and somehow managed to scream without lungs or a mouth was excruciatingly painful. Adam made a mental note never ever to lose his body.

The epic death match went on for a while and then something came into the Cage. This time though it was something that made even the two juiced up archangels fall back on their asses in trepidation.

After snorting in contempt and making a few snide comments at the two, the Big Bad took Sam's flayed soul with it, slamming the door to the Cage firmly behind it. Seeing no good outcome from this, Adam tucked himself back into shadows and drew the curtains. There were angels outside and they would eventually remember him and his soul.

OoOoO

His existence was a dull thing here, pretty much evenly steeped in monotonous bouts of horror, fear, and numbing boredom, but he liked being alive…..alive-ish? Was he dead? Adam had no clue, but it gave him something to think about, something to do. Left with few options that didn't involve him eating his shoes or talking to shadow puppets, mostly Adam slept or got as close to slumber as he could. His new version of it was not thinking very hard so there was a stillness within his headspace. It wasn't the same thing as sleep but it passed the time, what passed for time here.

There was only so much boredom the human mind can handle though before it ended up doing something nutballs reckless. Adam used the words 'nutballs' and 'reckless' cause he didn't know if there was a real word existing that thoroughly expressed the fool's decision of calling the attention of two feuding archangels down upon one's self.

"Could you not?" Adam chided as he toed the line of the current battlefield. He hadn't expected to be heard much less acknowledged but wow, now two celestial beings were turning what passed for their faces in his general direction. No pressure, Adam thought as he dry swallowed hard enough to make his suddenly too dry throat click.

"I mean you've been going at it since we got here and yeah…um…How's that working out for you?" Adam trailed off because the attention of the two infinite beings was starting to get to him. If he ever got the chance to, Adam was seriously going to kick some Renaissance artists in the balls because angels were so not fat babies wearing diapers with whimsical expression on their faces and wings strapped on their backs.

The most Adam could say was that Michael was small planet of blue flame, if fire could turn swirl like a liquid. Lucifer was the brighter of the two, made up of crystalline nebulas that made the sun look like a dim bulb flickering in the dark. The only thing that the artists had gotten right, kinda, sorta, was that the angels had wings, in the sense that they had huge extensions of their bodies coming out from the back. Michael's wings were sweeping asteroid fields of what looked to be firey death, the 'feathers' of which were icy cyan colored lava. Lucifer's wing were more similar to floating shards made from rainbow gems lit from within.

"You dare?"

Adam had no idea who had said that, but it didn't really matter. Smiting would feel the same from either celestial being, kind of like drowning in the Pacific as opposed to the Atlantic. So Adam did the only thing he could do, what anyone would do in this kind of situation. He shoved his hands deep in his jean pockets.

For some odd reason, he still wore the clothing he fell in the Cage with though he had lost the other layers at some point, and was now only left wearing his jeans and black t-shirt. His footwear tended to come and go, so at the moment Adam was barefoot and trying to remember if he had fallen in with sneakers or boots, cause that was super important to remember. Yeah, sane as a soup sandwich and keeping it together like a fucking pro.

"Just pointing out the obvious. We could be getting out of here but if you two are happy kicking the crap out of each other, who am I to stop you?" Adam said, remembering that he was talking to impatient archangels before making himself shrug, like he had better things to do than waste time on them. "Have fun with that."

"What do you mean get out? This is the Cage. There is no escape." was said with so much distain it had to be Lucifer. Michael still tended to talk like a freaking angelic robot, making Adam wonder if it was an angel thing to have only two setting- snide asshat or humorless android. Just his luck he would get both version to talk to.

"Yeah, cause Sam is such a shining example of this place's solidarity. I know, let's go ask his opinion about it. Oh wait, we can't because he's gone, as in escaped. From the Cage. Of which there is no escape." Adam pointed out dryly. Sarcasm or at least stating the blatantly obvious got the angel's full attention. Probably both. Sometimes you really had to spell it out for angels. Subtlety was not their forte.

"What do you propose?" Adam was sure it was Michael who spoke this time. Lucifer didn't like to talk to the 'mud monkey' when it was being all rational.

"Well this place was made for one of you, not two…." Adam trailed off. It was disconcerting having an audience after so long, however long that was. Time seemed to move differently here. It was something Adam tried not to think about too much or too often.

"Your point and make it quick." Lucifer this time and oh crap, the Devil sounded bored. A bored Satan was an unhappy Satan. Idle hands and all that…

"My point is that's what we humans call an unexpected advantage. One archangel might not be enough to pop the lid on this box, but two just might do the trick." Adam made himself forge on despite the greater wills bearing down upon him.

"That would mean we would have to work together." Michael clarified for the room like it wasn't already blatantly obvious. Angels, man…..

"Never. I'd rather rot." Lucifer snapped back.

"Yes, your place is here." Michael agreed and then it was on like Donkey Kong again between them. Adam rolled his eyes, going back to his corner of infinity.

OoOoO

It was quiet. Too quiet.

Oh crap.

Adam poked his head out to find the archangels sitting in their respective corners, which looked remarkably the same. Adam could only presume it was Heaven, or at least some version of it. He wasn't about to ask either of them, though he hoped not. Heaven looked like an acid trip of color and ever changing shapes, all of which gave him a headache and made his eyes want to bleed out of his head. In his limited experience, ceilings and floors were not supposed to drip noise like that.

His tentative approach made the angels stir though, but to his relief, not towards him. In shock and awe, Adam watched as the angels flung themselves upward, smacking bodily into what was the end of this reality. From what he could tell, the archangels were trying to bum rush the door, but the door was smacking them back down twice as hard for trying. They did this until their infinite shining wings were broken and the ground was covered in blood like a surreal meteor shower. Not for the first time, Adam wished he had done drugs at least once when he was still alive so that he could have some better descriptive adjectives to the amount of bizarre he was experiencing. He was covered in the blood and tears of archangels, and all he felt was empty.

"Can't you guys stow your crap long enough to work together?" Adam asked the space between the two as they rested and healed up. He reflected that he must be feeling particularly suicidal today.

"Never." Adam wasn't sure who said that tired word. Both angel looked equally exhausted.

"Whatever." he muttered, turning his back on the two.

"You judge us? You?" And just like that, Adam could feel forces that could crush him into paste with an afterthought back looming over his shoulder. He refused to turn around though, straightening his spine as he lifted his shoulders up in defiance. First rule was to never let them see you scared or something like that.

"Yeah, I do. This is fucking ridiculous. You guys are brothers. Get over it, at least long enough to break out." Adam told the pissed off angels bearing down on him.

"He defied our Father, sullied his creation, and created demons!" Michael said frigid and still with rage older than earth.

"Yeah that. Cry a river, build a bridge, and get the fuck over it." Adam snapped cause if he was going to get smited, he was going to make it worth his while. He wished he could have done better than preschool insults, but oh well.

"Never." was the answer, not that Adam was shocked by it. Nothing and no one could commit to an idea like an angel so Adam let his shoulders drop as he stalked off toward his neck of the woods without nary a backward glance at either angel.

And the archangels let him. It was only later that Adam reflected that Lucifer had been strangely silent the entire time.

OoOoO

Some people may dream about waking up to angels standing over them, and would give anything for such an experience. Those people were fucking morons in Adam's opinion as he glared up at the celestial beings invading his space.

Honestly, he had never been safe from the get-go, only ignored or forgotten at best, but he had let himself believe in some semblance of sanctuary here in his tent fort. For that sin, it was shredded before his eyes, leaving him out in the open. Adam tried not to think about every wildlife documentary that he had ever seen.

"Yes? Can I do something for you?" Adam forced the question out as calm and cool as he could from between teeth that were doing their damnedest to chew up his words. He cocked his head and tried to make it look nonchalant.

"Your plan didn't work. Our separate and combined efforts have failed….." and the rest was left unsaid though it was obvious that they were going to take their displeasure out on him. Just peachy.

"Ok. So lets access what else we have then." Adam said, thinking quickly. He was all for snark, but could totally pass on the pain

"Why should we consider anything you have to say?" Lucifer loomed like the cosmos itself overhead, and a very angry one at that if the myriads of multicolored shooting stars coming off of his wings were any indication of his ire.

"Cause you guys are real 'out of the box' thinkers." Adam pointed out with a smirk. Angels were absolute. Angels were powerful. Angels were the weapons and warriors of God. Angels didn't have enough imagination to think their way out of a wet paper bag without a map, but at least they were aware of their limitation cause Adam was still upright.

"You mock us even now. I could lay you out and fill your mouth with your mother's feces." and with that, Adam decided that Lucifer was not a happy camper today.

"You could but then you would still be in here." Adam pointed out. "Kudos for the reference though. Someone caught up on their movies while they were topside."

"Speak and have merit." Michael interceded before this little gem could escalate.

"Ok. Keeping it basic. Two archangels and one human equal the contents of the Cage. You with me so far?" Adam stated to have the archangels stare blankly back at him, or what passed for blank on the faces of the inhumanly esoteric. "Ok, so two archangels didn't work, but what about two supercharged archangels?"

"Continue." could have been either again but Adam was going to run with it. He would have given a lot for faces and expressions right about now to get a read on them. Hell, even voices would have been nice. He had no idea how he was understanding them. The archangels sounded like things, not people, and Adam had no idea how that was translating into a recognizable language, much less words to him.

Case in point, Michael was the dawn, the wash of light breaking over dark water made metallic and shimmering. In equal yet direct contrast, Lucifer was the dusk, the hush of shadows creeping in on the world to take hold. It didn't make sense, but considering he was trying to talk down archangels from smiting him, sense could fuck off for a while and play with itself until they were done here. It hadn't done anything helpful for him lately anyway.

"So you are giving us permission to touch your soul?" Lucifer this time and didn't that bastard sound amused.

"Oh hell, double for the both of you, to the NO. N. O." Adam stated firmly, calling for a timeout with his hands until he realized the angels probably had no idea what he was doing.

"Then I don't see how we are going to get out." Michael…..maybe…said.

"Oh for the love of…..can you guys pretend to be human or at least have something with faces while we are having this conversation? I'm getting a damn crick in my neck look up and over at you. I get it. You are BAMF. We all get it." Adam ranted at the two impossible beings before him and then they were not. Nick and what looked to be a younger version of John Winchester were staring back at Adam now, the archangels taking the forms of their former temporary vessels.

"Wow, I didn't think this could get weirder. Thank you for that." Adam sighed, rubbing his forehead.

"We have given you what you wanted and yet you still complain." Michael looked perplexed(and yes, he had to label him Michael in his head or else this was going to move from bizarre to scarring real quick).

"Yeah, bitch, bitch, bitch. That's all we do." Adam muttered while keeping an eye on Lucifer who was passive aggressively staring him down. He didn't know if Satan was just listening to him or contemplating turning him inside out via all his orifices.

"Can't I do both?" Lucifer asked in an almost friendly manner.

"Ok, one- it's rude to mind read the guy trying to help you out, two- it's fucking creepy so stop," Adam snapped as he started reciting multiplication times tables in his head because he had read somewhere once if you thought someone was trying to control your mind that you should do that. Yup, still sane. Cookies for everyone, even angels. "And third- I'm only considering it. I am not giving you asshats permission to give me bad touch."

"You are…scared? Why are you scared?" Michael asked, his brow furrowing. Adam stared at him blankly for a moment at the damn dumb question. Freaking angels.

"No, I'm secretly thrilled because Sam sounded like he was having the time of his life while you two were taking hits off of him." Adam said flippantly enough he was sure that the sarcasm would sail right over Michael's head. Apparently not, if Michael's eyes slitting was any indication.

"That was….regrettable." Michael said and Adam knew that was as close to as apology as he was ever going to get.

"Wow, you…..just wow. You should all have English accents cause seriously you have got understatement down to an art form. Don't hurt yourself there admitting that you were wrong." Adam shook his head, pressing forward before any more inane comments could be made by either side. "Look, I'm all for it if there is a way that you guys can tap into me without it hurting. Not a big fan of pain."

"There is….." Michael admitted after a long moment of silence and even that response was hesitant.

"Ok. Do you mind sharing that thought with the rest of us that can't read minds?" Adam pressed to be met with duel looks of distaste from the archangels. "What?"

"We would have to be tied to you." Lucifer expanded a little bit, like the concept was leaving a bad taste in his mouth. For all intents and purposes, Adam reflected that it just might be.

"Like bondage?" Adam took a stab in the dark, hoping for another kind of answer. Being chain ganged to either angel didn't sound appealing.

"More like a bond in the metaphysical and spiritual sense." Michael was the one who decided to bite the truth and disclosure bullets.

"Like a holy threeway?" Adam tried again, though he wondered why he was taking such a perverted spin on this.

"Your reasoning is base and inadequate, but yes. More or less, at least in the metaphysical sense." Lucifer said, tapping his chin thoughtfully in a very human gesture. Adam was caught off guard by it for a moment.

"Ok. I'm throwing this out there. So not a fan of that idea….." Adam said carefully.

"How do you think we feel about it?" Lucifer's upper lip curled in open contempt.

"But like I was going to say before I was so rudely interrupted," Adam rolled his eyes. "Let's stow the baggage crap and Daddy issues for a hot second, and get this done."

"You would still wish to proceed?" Michael asked, actually looking full on curious. The archangel wore emotions like they were expensive, and he didn't have two pennies to rub together for them.

"It's either that or this. 'That' is something new. I've seen 'this'. 'This' sucks ass." Adam clarified, leaving the angels looking confused.

"So you choose possible annihilation?" Michael spoke with wonder, his head tilting slightly to the side in what seemed to be a universal celestial expression whether Lucifer wanted to admit to it or not.

He hadn't realized that 'possible annihilation' was on the game board, but then again, angels tended to play in black and whites so Adam chided himself for not expecting it. "Sure. Why not? You only live once." Adam laughed, the noise flippant yet tired all around the edges.

"No." Lucifer stated, quite sure and firm on the matter.

"Fuck off, Satan. It's a saying." Adam muttered strained and almost all used up. "Never mind….So do we need mood lighting or something?"

Nervous. He was feeling nervous for the first time in a really long time. It was an almost unworldly sensation after all the fear and endless boredom, especially when two archangels reached for him at once, placing a hand on either of his shoulders, Michael at his right and Lucifer to his left.

What happened next made him feel like those little dots from the yin-yang symbols, his being torn apart to opposite corners of what felt like infinity and placed within each angel, but leaving him somehow still whole. Adam didn't know whether he imploded, exploded, or did a nifty combination of the two. He was laughing, he was screaming, he was crying, he was singing to a song that no human had ever heard before until now and it left his throat raw and bleeding in places when he had meat to sing with, his mind taking over the notes he couldn't hit with vocal cords and breath. Angel sang along with him, in words that were not sound or song. They were the instruments of creation and destruction, telling a tale from its beginning, one of absolute love and devotion. One of love left wanting and faith stained with sadness, a story that was cruel fate and crueler design. The world, the universe, all of reality really, was a stage, and all the beings above and below and everywhere else in-between, its actors.

And then it was all over.

OoOoO

"What's with you guys and this fucking room?"

The words came out strained and painful, like they are shards of glass Adam was trying to work out of his throat. He was back in the angel's green room, ugly and over decorated with what the celestial thought passed as normal.

Like all things angels created, something about it was just….off. Adam could never place his finger upon it. Everything was just perhaps a little too bright, too shiny, too clean, too new, too something… Life and human, especially human, were messy things, wearing at the edges of things. Nothing stayed pristine for long, time or something else leaving its mark upon it.

"It's a point of reference." made Adam turn around to find that he was not alone here. The archangels were still dressed in their meat suits, something Adam was grateful for cause normalcy was so fleeting. Lucifer was wearing a version of Nick in his prime, the blonde dressed in a white suit. It made his blue eyes come off as more intense, not that the Devil needed any help in that area. Michael appeared to be wearing an altered version of John Winchester though. His father's skin was more tan, his dark hair falling well past his shoulders now, and his eyes more turquoise than blue.

"Who are you supposed to be?" Adam asked, studying this new visage.

"This was an older vessel of mine from your family's line. I didn't think you would approve of being bonded to what you perceive to be your father." Michael nodded down at himself.

"Fair enough…" Adam started to say. Thoughts that were not his own rolled through his head like a migraine made of cattle herds stampeding through a very breakable section of Chinatown. "Ow! Ow, ow, ow! Whoever is thinking that, lower the volume! So yeah, great! We're bonded!

Sinking down to his knees, Adam clutched at his head as if trying to keep it together. He ended up laying out fully on his back to stare up at a stupidly ornate ceiling. Fucking stupid ass angels and their sense of décor. "Why are we here? I hate this room."

"You were going to explode." Michael informed him nonchalantly, like that was a normal thing humans did.

"Don't sugarcoat it." Adam sighed, the ache in his head finally receding. Everyone was thinking very quietly to themselves at the moment, both archangels humming in the background. "Thanks for that. What now?"

"We use you." Lucifer said. Adam opened his eyes to find the Devil staring down at him.

"Sweet talker. Aren't you supposed to have a silver tongue?" Adam dry swallowed, feeling nervous again. Nothing like Satan himself saying he needed to use you to kick off the butterflies in the belly. Adam found himself being picked off up the floor to be slammed into a handy wall.

"What? No foreplay?" Adam said weakly as he stared down at the two archangels crowding him.

"This was your idea." Michael said gravely, because he only seemed two settings of serious or super serious.

"Yeah, yeah. Me and my big mouth." Adam whimpered, but even he realized that there was nothing to lose in doing this. Not really, not anymore. They were bonded, whatever the fuck that meant.

"I'm scared." Adam told the angel on his right.

"I don't understand. I will protect you." Michael answered, and bless his heart, he actually sounded sincere.

"You're a sword. Swords wound."

"I can also be your shield." Michael promised.

"I don't believe you." Adam said, feeling sad about that for some reason.

"I can't lie." Michael said with such love because angels were terrible things.

"I'm scared." Adam told the angel to his left.

"I don't care, but I will kill for you." Lucifer smiled.

"You're the Devil."

"I can your angel too."

"You're a liar."

"I never lie. I don't have to."

And with that, their vows were exchanged. Power pumped wildly through them all like in torrents from cliff high waterfalls made of comets into gluttonous black holes.

They were tied, twined, intermingled together until Adam didn't know where he began and an angel ended. For one brief instant, Adam understood everything as two infinities danced on the head of his pin in perfect balance with one another.

In the next second, all he knew was motion, if it could even classified as such a mundane thing. Light, Dark, and the Grey Between hit the Cage as one, popping the top of it as the trio hurtled through. Something that was Adam but not watching in amusement the Cage broke under their combined efforts, taking out most of Hell with it. Another part that was Adam but not could feel Heaven's Gate tremble as well as they headed right for it.

Tremble, but not open.

OoOoO

"We're sitting in cow shit."

Yup, that was definitely cow shit. Adam was covered in the stuff. This was not how he imagined his return to the land of the living. Covered in shit with two angels knocking around in his head, their handprints burned into his shoulders.

"Yes. We appear to be in a pasture of what you call Wisconsin." Lucifer said, looking around. He appeared remarkably clean of animal fecal matter. Adam resisted the urge to chuck a smelly nugget of the stuff at his head. That thought earned him a look.

"We are still sitting in cow shit. You could have picked anywhere else. All the world to choose from and you pick here. Right here." Adam gestured down, flicking manure off of his fingers. From what he could remember, they had sort of crash landed here. Adam had regained consciousness to an overly friendly bovine licking his face.

"Cows are noble creatures." Michael said, the archangel petting one of said noble creatures. That sad thing was Adam knew he meant every word of what he said. Fucking bond.

"Shut up. We just killed about a hundred of them. We got to get out of here. Someone's going to notice." Adam said, picking himself off of the ground. He didn't seem any worse for wear other than being covered in cow poop. Hell, he even had all his layers back and his boots so he was already winning.

The same couldn't be said about their surroundings. The impact of two archangels and one bonded human had barbequed the herd to a fine crisp of crunchy critters. Adam just hoped that the yokels would chalk this all up to something normal like aliens.

"Brother…" Michael was staring up at the sky with an odd look on his face.

"I know. I feel it too." Lucifer said, his face holding the same weird expression upon it. It was something between disbelief and dawning horror. It was not a good look. It felt even worse inside his head.

"What?" Adam really hated himself for having to ask. He was out of the Box. Right now, he should be feeling ecstatic. He should be kissing earth and babies, and singing at the top of his lungs. Instead, he was being filled with this creeping sense of dread.

"Heaven is closed," Lucifer confirmed that bad feeling. "Even to us."

"What? What do you mean Heaven's closed? It's not a bar. You guy don't get to make last call and put the chairs up." Adam said as he scrambled up off of the ground, ignoring how his clothing squished and clung to his skin.

"Someone did just that though." Lucifer glared up at the sky.

"This is impossible." and didn't that just break Adam's heart a little bit. It seemed Michael had different setting after all. Angels were meant to look or sound so lost.

"Why don't you try flying up and tell them that?" Lucifer snapped, who had far more experience with that sort of thing. Unfortunately, the archangel had anger issues as well, and an unhappy Satan tended to make things unalive.

"Guy! Whoa! What does that mean for your meat suits?" Adam asked, voicing the first distraction that came to mind. Enough cows had died.

Now that they were back on Earth, he didn't want to find Dean and Sam with both archangel in tow to rehash an old issue. Demanding bodies in live in was not his idea of an ideal family reunion.

"Nothing. We are bound to you now. We have no use for your brothers." Lucifer frowned at him like he were an idiot. He waved off Adam's concern like he hadn't just spent all his most recent time on earth trying to acquire a Winchester as a vessel.

"Except to end their lives." Michael growled, making the other two look over at him in surprise.

"Come again?" Adam ventured since Lucifer was still looking at his brother like he had grown a second head.

"This is their fault." Michael said with conviction.

"How do you figure?" Adam threw his hands up in the air, grimacing as some moocow poo went flying. "Seriously, can't one of you…"

"It's always their fault." Lucifer sighed. He nodded toward Adam who looked down at himself to find his clothing clean again and smelling all minty fresh. He arched at brow at the archangel who just shrugged back.

"Closing heaven seems a little out of their reach, don't you think?" Adam said, navigating through the cow paddies toward a fence now that he was clean.

"The Apocalypse should have been or was the Cage a fond memory for you?" Lucifer pointed out.

"They had help with that. This is Heaven we are talking about here. Why would Dean and Sam mess with Heaven?" Adam said. He wasn't trying to defend his brothers, who in his opinion were both idiots, but this seemed well out of their weight class.

"Why do your brothers do anything?" Lucifer shrugged.

"Adam is right. Such a thing can't be done by humans. This wasn't the Winchester. It had to be an angel." Michael was toying with different kinds of anger. Adam could feel it through their bond.

"One of our own?" Lucifer mused. "Some pretender to the throne looking to do it better and bigger than Dad?"

"Ok, everyone calm the fuck down. We need information, not conjecture, and we sure as hell aren't going to get it from the cows. Let's go get something to eat, and then talk to someone. A lot of someones, and if we don't like their answer, we smite them. Does that sound good to you?" Adam decided, cause he could really go for a burger. Noble creatures or not, cows were fucking tasty.

"And if brothers are involved, your or ours, what do you propose?" Michael asked. He wanted direction as much as he wanted to lead. Lucifer wanted the same thing to an extent.

It was strange thing, listening in on angels. Adam wondered if this is what an ant heard when a boot tread too near it, the terrible cacophony of vibrations that could have been its destruction.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

OoOoO

The End


End file.
